PLANTING. 49 



The old saying, " Plant the hills and bare the vales," is, like 

 most proverbs, right in the restricted sense of an obvious application. 

 It holds generally good as coinciding with the natural arrangement 

 of the formation of the land surface by action of water ; but a place 

 would appear very dotted and formal if that mode of treatment 

 only were adopted. If the primal natural operations gave this 

 formation of the ground, and vegetation was first on the hills, yet, 

 as the soil washed from the hillsides to the valleys where the rivers 

 flowed, vegetation soon crept along either side of their course, and 

 was nourished there. If we copy Nature's operations in this way, 

 we find her planting on every side not only on the hills. We 

 should seize on the spirit of the beauty in her operations, and, 

 with such license as her developments allow, foster the expression 

 of her delightful influences, and train them to our use. In the 

 restricted scenes touched by the landscape gardener, we have, by 

 the introduction of foreign plants, the power to create, on a small 

 scale, the beauties of plant life in all temperate climes ; our selection 

 depending on soil, subsoil, elevation, distance from the sea, and 

 latitude. 



There are three points of importance to be determined in regard to 

 groups of planting, viz., the site, the ground outline, and the disposing 

 of the trees and shrubs. The conditions under which the design has 

 to be created, and applied, vary in almost every case, and no hard and 

 fast rules can be made for adoption. In one place the artist's design 

 may be modified by the necessity of creating shelter, in another the 

 planting may be needed to mask unsightly objects that are near, in 

 a third to direct the gaze to distant beauties of landscape that may 

 be brought into the whole effect, like possessions. Each place has its 

 peculiar considerations. All that can be done here, in this connection, 

 is to speak in general terms, and to particularise only with certain 

 groupings that may illustrate the general question. 



H 



